DreamsCloud raises $2M to find meaning in your dreams

DreamsCloud doesn't intepret dreams, but uses them to provide insight and guidance

How often do we dream about something, and then try to figure out what the hell it actually meant? For example, I once dreamt that I was in a buddy-cop movie with this woman I used to work with, even though she was a) not a policewoman and b) I hardly even knew her at the time. What did it mean? I have no idea!

DreamsCloud, which calls itself the "world’s leading online dream resource," has the idea that helping people make sense of dreams like that can actually be, ultimately, benefitial to our overall wellness and health.

Now the company has raised $2 million in first external funding round, it was announced on Tuesday. It was led by Sphere Capital Holding.

The Reston, Virginia-based company offers "a 360-degree approach to dreaming," Jean Marc Emden, Chief Visionary Officer and Co-Founder of DreamsCloud told me. That includes a real-time global dream map, dream journaling/sharing tools and "the largest group of professional dream reflectors," and a interactive database of more than 1.8 million dreams.

People who use DreamsCloud, and its iOS app DreamSphere, are everyday consumers "who have always been curious about what their dreams might really mean," he said. "DreamSphere helps people to better understand their dreams through reflection and awareness."

For example, a mother who has dreams about being chased can use DreamSphere to gain insights into what those dreams might be indicating, and from there can take actionable steps to wellness. Users can also request a dream reflection from the company's team of Reflectors, or dream experts, who "provide unparalleled insight regarding dreams and can help users self-reflect on their own dreams."

"DreamsCloud empowers users to better understand their dreams and improve their waking lives," Emden said, the company gives its users the tools and resources, which they often do not have, to do so. Using DreamCloud, users are able to collect, analyze, safe-keep and share their dreams in the way that makes them most comfortable.

The company will use the new funding to expand its reach via additional marketing efforts, and add memeber of its engineering and developer teams. The company currently employs 10 full time workers.

While there are others offering some of the same resources, include dreaming app Shadow, as well as Dream:On, Emden says that DreamCloud stands apart because of the sheer number of people currently using it.

"Our offering is much larger than other players; our platforms hosts more than 1.8 million dreams, which in turn means our new app, DreamSphere, is more robust," he said.

He also pointed to certain features, including the global dreams trending map, which is updated in real-time, and allows users to search for dreams according to location, date, popularity, what’s trending, from connected friends or by keywords. And to its Dream Reflectors, which was founded and selected by our Advisor and "the grandfather of dreams" Dr. Robert Van de Castle, who wrote the book on quantitative analysis of dreams.

The panel of Dream Reflectors have deep expertise in dreams study, and they help users self-reflect on their dreams and their lives.

Ultimately, the goal of the is to "set users on a journey of self-reflection, self-discovery and self-improvement built on multi-channel access, comprehensive resources and expert knowledge," Emden told me. "The mission of our Dream Reflectors is not to interpret the dreams for our users, rather to provide insight and guidance designed to aid them in the self-reflection process."

The DreamSphere app which launched on July 15 of this year, and it already has more than 7,000 active users and that number is steadily growing. In addition, its currently see anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 dreams logged per day.